Raw Zucchini Hummus

Early in our courtship, Rob decided to surprise me with some hummus. While we diligently follow our favourite recipe now, there was a time when Rob liked to “wing it”. At that time, Rob was a novice with beans, too.

He went all out and bought dried chickpeas. He soaked them overnight. He methodically added the tahini, lemon juice, olive oil and finally the chickpeas to his food processor. It churned away and then stopped working. The hummus had broken his food processor! The first thing that popped into Rob’s head was – let’s go to Janet’s apartment and use her food processor to finish it off. I was away, so he silently entered my apartment and finished off pureeing the hummus.

He surprised me the next day with the hummus when he met me in Texas. I tasted it. It was off. Did you follow a recipe? Yes! But then I tinkered with it since it didn’t taste as good as before. Oh well, we better find a better recipe next time. This tastes funny. I don’t know what it is, though.

A few days later, we figured it out. Maybe it was a week later.. or a month later, I can’t remember. This story is such a classic, I mostly remember the punch line….

Rob used raw chickpeas in the recipe. He soaked them but did not cook them. He didn’t know he had to cook them (canned chickpeas are already cooked?? the recipe didn’t tell me to cook them!). Thankfully, now he knows better. ;)

These days, hummus has become fairly ubiquitous for any bean spread. Technically, hummus is Arabic for chickpea and mostly associated with a chickpea puree with tahini.

However, those versions always used cooked beans. Now was my turn to try raw hummus. Without any sprouted beans, though.

With zucchini as its base instead of chickpeas, and cashews instead of tahini, there is not much resemblance to classical hummus. However, it is one deliciously creamy spread spiced with garlic, lemon juice, nutritional yeast and miso. Use it to dip your favourite vegetables or crackers or however else you love to use hummus. :) Lately I have been loving it with huge carrots as my after dinner snack. There is something so satisfying about eating a whole uncut carrot smothered in a garlicky hummusdip.

Oh, Rob… LOL! I am still cracking up. I have made raw hummus – with SPROUTED chickpeas. ;) I also made it with raw sweet potatoes. Love the zucchini idea. I have a paleo friend that makes a version of this and shared her red pepper falvored version. I was suprised at how good it was!

What a sweet story! I think we’ve probably all committed some pretty silly kitchen mistakes in our time. I quite like sprouted chickpea hummus for a change. Like you I’m forever trying new varieties, last week was an adaptation of the Appetite for reduction jalapeno + cilantro version.
This looks like a good one for when I’m buried in zucchini in the summer if my plants go wild again.
Love the look of some of your other versions too- pom molasses/red pepper, pistachio rosemary w.bean..yum!

Haha, there are too many kitchen mistakes to document.. we make them all the time. I always want to be drowning in zucchinis but somehow I can’t seem to grow them. It also doesn’t help that I relegate them to the shadiest spot of the garden hoping to prevent a bumper crop. Instead I just get nothing. :P

The first time we made hummus at home, my husband (whom I was still dating) made his own tahini because he didn’t know you could purchase it already made. Ha ha. He complained for years about the expense and the trouble of making the ‘tahini paste.’ Silly boys!

A few weeks ago, we had a discussion about cooking our own beans instead of buying them canned (something I fully support and have been suggesting for years). The hubs can’t wrap his head around this process, somehow. He keeps insisting we EITHER soak OR cook the beans. Sigh. I’ll take the blame for this one, though; I always have something soaking in the fridge (usually raw nuts or seeds), so he’s rightly confused ;-)

I love your story – thanks for sharing! I have actually wondered whether it is possible to sprout beans and then cook them like normal. Although sometimes I can’t seem to get my act in gear to sprout anything these days… ;) I have some pre-soaked then dehydrated beans that I bought — and I cook those, so I assume it is possible. :)

Clever! A nice alternative to regular hummus (and hopefully the hummus police won’t come after you for calling it hummus. Years ago, some Lebanese businessmen tried to get hummus branded as uniquely Lebanese). I will definitely make this, although not as an after dinner snack (somehow garlic/miso/noosh after dinner doesn’t do it for me…that’s where chocolate comes in!).

And Rob, don’t feel bad. I have made far sillier mistakes. When I started to try to learn to cook before becoming a vegetarian, I made moo goo gai pan. Andy and I were eating it and he was doing his valiant best to pretend that he liked it, but he did ask me if I followed the recipe because it seemed so incredibly salty. I assured him that I did and explained to him what I did, step by step. He uncovered what the problem was: the recipe called for 1/2 cup bouillon, which I used…but just the crystals/powder, not a teaspoon diluted in half a cup of water!

Thanks for sharing, Ellen. We definitely all have our share of bloopers in the kitchen. :) It reminds me how I became adverse to tandoori chicken. My Mom bought a spice mix. She added a few tbsp to the recipe. Only afterwards, after we all thought it was mighty spicy, did she realize it called for tsp not tbsp. Ever after that, I had a green pass to not eating the tandoori chicken. ;)

You know, I have never been a hummus fan until I tried a raw hummus, NOT made of chickpeas! Game changer for sure! Now I love it. It’s a weekly staple around here now and an easy way to go through a whole bag of baby carrots so that’s an added bonus. I like how you are using cashews instead of tahini. That sounds interesting. I can’t wait to try it. New follower here!

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